Cardinal Müller Dismissed: His Replacement May Be OK
As Catholics reel after Pope Francis fails to renew Cardinal Müller's position as Prefect for the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith , traditionally known as La Suprema , or the "supreme" congregation, it is interesting to look back to a source I seldom quote, the National Catholic Reporter , to see what was said about Müller's replacement, Archbishop Luis Ladaria Ferrer SJ, formerly Secretary of the CDF, when he was appointed secretary: As rumors of the appointment began to circulate early this week, I reached out to Ladaria's colleagues at the Gregorian and on the ITC for a "read" on who he is, and what one might expect from him at the CDF. It's telling that the two most common terms Italians used to characterize him were gentile , meaning "kind," and affidabile , meaning "reliable" -- both in the generic sense that he's a responsible, hard-working person, and in the more narrow ecclesiastical sense that h...